The combatants, whom we left engaged at the end of the last chapter,
made mutual passes at each other with apparently equal skill and
courage. Charles had been too often in action, and too long a party as
well as a victim to civil war, to find any thing new or surprising in
being obliged to defend himself with his own hands; and Everard had
been distinguished, as well for his personal bravery, as for the other
properties of a commander. But the arrival of a third party prevented
the tragic conclusion of a combat, in which the success of either party
must have given him much cause for regretting his victory.
It was the old knight himself, who arrived, mounted upon a forest pony,
for the war and sequestration had left him no steed of a more dignified
description. He thrust himself between the combatants, and commanded
them on their lives to hold. So soon as a glance from one to the other
had ascertained to him whom he had to deal with, he demanded, “Whether
the devils of Woodstock, whom folk talked about, had got possession of
them both, that they were tilting at each other within the verge of the
royal liberties? Let me tell both of you,” he said, “that while old
Henry Lee is at Woodstock, the immunities of the Park shall be
maintained as much as if the King were still on the throne. None shall
fight duellos here, excepting the stags in their season. Put up, both
of you, or I shall lug out as thirdsman, and prove perhaps the worst
devil of the three!—As Will says—
‘I’ll so maul you and your toasting-irons,
That you shall think the devil has come from hell.’”
The combatants desisted from their encounter, but stood looking at each
other sullenly, as men do in such a situation, each unwilling to seem
to desire peace more than the other, and averse therefore to be the
first to sheathe his sword.
“Return your weapons, gentlemen, upon the spot,” said the knight yet
more peremptorily, “one and both of you, or you will have something to
do with me, I promise you. You may be thankful times are changed. I
have known them such, that your insolence might have cost each of you
your right hand, if not redeemed with a round sum of money. Nephew, if
you do not mean to alienate me for ever, I command you to put
up.—Master Kerneguy, you are my guest. I request of you not to do me
the insult of remaining with your sword drawn, where it is my duty to
see peace observed.”
“I obey you, Sir Henry,” said the King, sheathing his rapier—“I hardly
indeed know wherefore I was assaulted by this gentleman. I assure you,
none respects the King’s person or privileges more than myself—though
the devotion is somewhat out of fashion.”
“We may find a place to meet, sir,” replied Everard, “where neither the
royal person nor privileges can be offended.”
“Faith, very hardly, sir,” said Charles, unable to suppress the rising
jest—“I mean, the King has so few followers, that the loss of the least
of them might be some small damage to him; but, risking all that, I
will meet you wherever there is fair field for a poor cavalier to get
off in safety, if he has the luck in fight.”
Sir Henry Lee’s first idea had been fixed upon the insult offered to
the royal demesne; he now began to turn them towards the safety of his
kinsman, and of the young royalist, as he deemed him. “Gentlemen,” he
said, “I must insist on this business being put to a final end. Nephew
Markham, is this your return for my condescension in coming back to
Woodstock on your warrant, that you should take an opportunity to cut
the throat of my guest?”
“If you knew his purpose as well as I do,”—said Markham, and then
paused, conscious that he might only incense his uncle without
convincing him, as any thing he might say of Kerneguy’s addresses to
Alice was likely to be imputed to his own jealous suspicions—he looked
on the ground, therefore, and was silent.
“And you, Master Kerneguy,” said Sir Henry, “can you give me any reason
why you seek to take the life of this young man, in whom, though
unhappily forgetful of his loyalty and duty, I must yet take some
interest, as my nephew by affinity?”
“I was not aware the gentleman enjoyed that honour, which certainly
would have protected him from my sword,” answered Kerneguy. “But the
quarrel is his; nor can I tell any reason why he fixed it upon me,
unless it were the difference of our political opinions.”
“You know the contrary,” said Everard; “you know that I told you you
were safe from me as a fugitive royalist—and your last words showed you
were at no loss to guess my connexion with Sir Henry. That, indeed, is
of little consequence. I should debase myself did I use the
relationship as a means of protection from you, or any one.”
As they thus disputed, neither choosing to approach the real cause of
quarrel, Sir Henry looked from one to the other, with a peace-making
conscience, exclaiming—
“‘Why, what an intricate impeach is this?
I think you both have drunk of Circe’s cup.’
“Come, my young masters, allow an old man to mediate between you. I am
not shortsighted in such matters—The mother of mischief is no bigger
than a gnat’s wing; and I have known fifty instances in my own day,
when, as Will says—
‘Gallants have been confronted hardily,
In single opposition, hand to hand.’
in which, after the field was fought, no one could remember the cause
of quarrel.—Tush! a small thing will do it—the taking of the wall—or
the gentle rub of the shoulder in passing each other, or a hasty word,
or a misconceived gesture—Come, forget your cause of quarrel, be what
it will—you have had your breathing, and though you put up your rapiers
unbloodied, that was no default of yours, but by command of your elder,
and one who had right to use authority. In Malta, where the duello is
punctiliously well understood, the persons engaged in a single combat
are bound to halt on the command of a knight, or priest, or lady, and
the quarrel so interrupted is held as honourably terminated, and may
not be revived.—Nephew, it is, I think, impossible that you can nourish
spleen against this young gentleman for having fought for his king.
Hear my honest proposal, Markham—You know I bear no malice, though I
have some reason to be offended with you—Give the young man your hand
in friendship, and we will back to the Lodge, all three together, and
drink a cup of sack in token of reconciliation.”
Markham Everard found himself unable to resist this approach towards
kindness on his uncle’s part. He suspected, indeed, what was partly the
truth, that it was not entirely from reviving good-will, but also, that
his uncle thought, by such attention, to secure his neutrality at
least, if not his assistance, for the safety of the fugitive royalist.
He was sensible that he was placed in an awkward predicament; and that
he might incur the suspicions of his own party, for holding intercourse
even with a near relation, who harboured such guests. But, on the other
hand, he thought his services to the Commonwealth had been of
sufficient importance to outweigh whatever envy might urge on that
topic. Indeed, although the Civil War had divided families much, and in
many various ways, yet when it seemed ended by the triumph of the
republicans, the rage of political hatred began to relent, and the
ancient ties of kindred and friendship regained at least a part of
their former influence. Many reunions were formed; and those who, like
Everard, adhered to the conquering party, often exerted themselves for
the protection of their deserted relatives.
As these things rushed through his mind, accompanied with the prospect
of a renewed intercourse with Alice Lee, by means of which he might be
at hand to protect her against every chance, either of injury or
insult, he held out his hand to the supposed Scottish page, saying at
the same time, “That, for his part, he was very ready to forget the
cause of quarrel, or rather, to consider it as arising out of a
misapprehension, and to offer Master Kerneguy such friendship as might
exist between honourable men, who had embraced different sides in
politics.”
Unable to overcome the feeling of personal dignity, which prudence
recommended him to forget, Louis Kerneguy in return bowed low, but
without accepting Everard’s proffered hand.
“He had no occasion,” he said, “to make any exertions to forget the
cause of quarrel, for he had never been able to comprehend it; but as
he had not shunned the gentleman’s resentment, so he was now willing to
embrace and return any degree of his favour, with which he might be
pleased to honour him.”
Everard withdrew his hand with a smile, and bowed in return to the
salutation of the page, whose stiff reception of his advances he
imputed to the proud pettish disposition of a Scotch boy, trained up in
extravagant ideas of family consequence and personal importance, which
his acquaintance with the world had not yet been sufficient to dispel.
Sir Henry Lee, delighted with the termination of the quarrel, which he
supposed to be in deep deference to his own authority, and not
displeased with the opportunity of renewing some acquaintance with his
nephew, who had, notwithstanding his political demerits, a warmer
interest in his affections than he was, perhaps, himself aware of,
said, in a tone of consolation, “Never be mortified, young gentlemen. I
protest it went to my heart to part you, when I saw you stretching
yourselves so handsomely, and in fair love of honour, without any
malicious or blood-thirsty thoughts. I promise you, had it not been for
my duty as Ranger here, and sworn to the office, I would rather have
been your umpire than your hinderance.—But a finished quarrel is a
forgotten quarrel; and your tilting should have no further consequence
excepting the appetite it may have given you.”
So saying, he urged forward his pony, and moved in triumph towards the
Lodge by the nearest alley. His feet almost touching the ground, the
ball of his toe just resting in the stirrup,—the forepart of the thigh
brought round to the saddle,—the heels turned outwards, and sunk as
much as possible,—his body precisely erect,—the reins properly and
systematically divided in his left hand, his right holding a riding-rod
diagonally pointed towards the horse’s left ear,—he seemed a champion
of the manege, fit to have reined Bucephalus himself. His youthful
companions, who attended on either hand like equerries, could scarcely
suppress a smile at the completely adjusted and systematic posture of
the rider, contrasted with the wild and diminutive appearance of the
pony, with its shaggy coat, and long tail and mane, and its keen eyes
sparkling like red coals from amongst the mass of hair which fell over
its small countenance. If the reader has the Duke of Newcastle’s book
on horsemanship, (_splendida moles!_) he may have some idea of the
figure of the good knight, if he can conceive such a figure as one of
the cavaliers there represented, seated, in all the graces of his art,
on a Welsh or Exmoor pony, in its native savage state, without grooming
or discipline of any kind; the ridicule being greatly enhanced by the
disproportion of size betwixt the animal and its rider.
Perhaps the knight saw their wonder, for the first words he said after
they left the ground were, “Pixie, though small, is mettlesome,
gentlemen,” (here he contrived that Pixie should himself corroborate
the assertion, by executing a gambade,)—“he is diminutive, but full of
spirit;—indeed, save that I am somewhat too large for an elfin
horseman,” (the knight was upwards of six feet high,) “I should remind
myself, when I mount him, of the Fairy King, as described by Mike
Drayton:—
Himself he on an earwig set,
Yet scarce upon his back could get,
So oft and high he did curvet,
Ere he himself did settle.
He made him stop, and turn, and bound,
To gallop, and to trot the round.
He scarce could stand on any ground,
He was so full of mettle.’”
“My old friend, Pixie,” said Everard, stroking the pony’s neck, “I am
glad that he has survived all these bustling days—Pixie must be above
twenty years old, Sir Henry?”
“Above twenty years, certainly. Yes, nephew Markham, war is a whirlwind
in a plantation, which only spares what is least worth leaving. Old
Pixie and his old master have survived many a tall fellow, and many a
great horse—neither of them good for much themselves. Yet, as Will
says, an old man can do somewhat. So Pixie and I still survive.”
So saying, he again contrived that Pixie should show some remnants of
activity.
“Still survive?” said the young Scot, completing the sentence which the
good knight had left unfinished—“ay, still survive,
‘To witch the world with noble horsemanship.’”
Everard coloured, for he felt the irony; but not so his uncle, whose
simple vanity never permitted him to doubt the sincerity of the
compliment.
“Are you advised of that?” he said. “In King James’s time, indeed, I
have appeared in the tilt-yard, and there you might have said—
‘You saw young Harry with his beaver up.’
“As to seeing _old_ Harry, why”—Here the knight paused, and looked as a
bashful man in labour of a pun—“As to old Harry—why, you might as well
see the _devil_. You take me, Master Kerneguy—the devil, you know, is
my namesake—ha—ha—ha!—Cousin Everard, I hope your precision is not
startled by an innocent jest?”
He was so delighted with the applause of both his companions, that he
recited the whole of the celebrated passage referred to, and concluded
with defying the present age, bundle all its wits, Donne, Cowley,
Waller, and the rest of them together, to produce a poet of a tenth
part of the genius of old Will.
“Why, we are said to have one of his descendants among us—Sir William
D’Avenant,” said Louis Kerneguy; “and many think him as clever a
fellow.”
“What!” exclaimed Sir Henry—“Will D’Avenant, whom I knew in the North,
an officer under Newcastle, when the Marquis lay before Hull?—why, he
was an honest cavalier, and wrote good doggrel enough; but how came he
a-kin to Will Shakspeare, I trow?”
“Why,” replied the young Scot, “by the surer side of the house, and
after the old fashion, if D’Avenant speaks truth. It seems that his
mother was a good-looking, laughing, buxom mistress of an inn between
Stratford and London, at which Will Shakspeare often quartered as he
went down to his native town; and that out of friendship and gossipred,
as we say in Scotland, Will Shakspeare became godfather to Will
D’Avenant; and not contented with this spiritual affinity, the younger
Will is for establishing some claim to a natural one, alleging that his
mother was a great admirer of wit, and there were no bounds to her
complaisance for men of genius.”
“Out upon the hound!” said Colonel Everard; “would he purchase the
reputation of descending from poet, or from prince, at the expense of
his mother’s good fame?—his nose ought to be slit.”
“That would be difficult,” answered the disguised Prince, recollecting
the peculiarity of the bard’s countenance.[1]
[1] D’Avenant actually wanted the nose, the foundation of many a jest
of the day.
“Will D’Avenant the son of Will Shakspeare?” said the knight, who had
not yet recovered his surprise at the enormity of the pretension; “why,
it reminds me of a verse in the Puppet-show of Phaeton, where the hero
complains to his mother—
‘Besides, by all the village boys I am sham’d,
You the Sun’s son, you rascal, you be d—d!’
“I never heard such unblushing assurance in my life!—Will D’Avenant the
son of the brightest and best poet that ever was, is, or will be?—But I
crave your pardon, nephew—You, I believe, love no stage plays.”
“Nay, I am not altogether so precise as you would make me, uncle. I
have loved them perhaps too well in my time, and now I condemn them not
altogether, or in gross, though I approve not their excesses and
extravagances.—I cannot, even in Shakspeare, but see many things both
scandalous to decency and prejudicial to good manners—many things which
tend to ridicule virtue, or to recommend vice,—at least to mitigate the
hideousness of its features. I cannot think these fine poems are an
useful study, and especially for the youth of either sex, in which
bloodshed is pointed out as the chief occupation of the men, and
intrigue as the sole employment of the women.”
In making these observations, Everard was simple enough to think that
he was only giving his uncle an opportunity of defending a favourite
opinion, without offending him by a contradiction, which was so limited
and mitigated. But here, as on other occasions, he forgot how obstinate
his uncle was in his views, whether of religion, policy, or taste, and
that it would be as easy to convert him to the Presbyterian form of
government, or engage him to take the abjuration oath, as to shake his
belief in Shakspeare. There was another peculiarity in the good
knight’s mode of arguing, which Everard, being himself of a plain and
downright character, and one whose religious tenets were in some degree
unfavourable to the suppressions and simulations often used in society,
could never perfectly understand. Sir Henry, sensible of his natural
heat of temper, was wont scrupulously to guard against it, and would
for some time, when in fact much offended, conduct a debate with all
the external appearance of composure, till the violence of his feelings
would rise so high as to overcome and bear away the artificial barriers
opposed to it, and rush down upon the adversary with accumulating
wrath. It thus frequently happened, that, like a wily old general, he
retreated in the face of his disputant in good order and by degrees,
with so moderate a degree of resistance, as to draw on his antagonist’s
pursuit to the spot, where, at length, making a sudden and unexpected
attack, with horse, foot, and artillery at once, he seldom failed to
confound the enemy, though he might not overthrow him.
It was on this principle, therefore, that, hearing Everard’s last
observation, he disguised his angry feelings, and answered, with a tone
where politeness was called in to keep guard upon passion, “That
undoubtedly the Presbyterian gentry had given, through the whole of
these unhappy times, such proofs of an humble, unaspiring, and
unambitious desire of the public good, as entitled them to general
credit for the sincerity of those very strong scruples which they
entertained against works, in which the noblest, sentiments of religion
and virtue,—sentiments which might convert hardened sinners, and be
placed with propriety in the mouths of dying saints and martyrs,—
happened, from the rudeness and coarse taste of the times, to be mixed
with some broad jests, and similar matter, which lay not much in the
way, excepting of those who painfully sought such stuff out, that they
might use it in vilifying what was in itself deserving of the highest
applause. But what he wished especially to know from his nephew was,
whether any of those gifted men, who had expelled the learned scholars
and deep divines of the Church of England from the pulpit, and now
flourished in their stead, received any inspiration from the muses, (if
he might use so profane a term without offence to Colonel Everard,) or
whether they were not as sottishly and brutally averse from elegant
letters, as they were from humanity and common sense?”
Colonel Everard might have guessed, by the ironical tone in which this
speech was delivered, what storm was mustering within his uncle’s
bosom—nay, he might have conjectured the state of the old knight’s
feelings from his emphasis on the word Colonel, by which epithet, as
that which most connected his nephew with the party he hated, he never
distinguished Everard, unless when his wrath was rising; while, on the
contrary, when disposed to be on good terms with him, he usually called
him Kinsman, or Nephew Markham. Indeed, it was under a partial sense
that this was the case, and in the hope to see his cousin Alice, that
the Colonel forbore making any answer to the harangue of his uncle,
which had concluded just as the old knight had alighted at the door of
the Lodge, and was entering the hall, followed by his two attendants.
Phœbe at the same time made her appearance in the hall, and received
orders to bring some “beverage” for the gentlemen. The Hebe of
Woodstock failed not to recognise and welcome Everard by an almost
imperceptible curtsy; but she did not serve her interest, as she
designed, when she asked the knight, as a question of course, whether
he commanded the attendance of Mistress Alice. A stern _No_, was the
decided reply; and the ill-timed interference seemed to increase his
previous irritation against Everard for his depreciation of Shakspeare.
“I would insist,” said Sir Henry, resuming the obnoxious subject, “were
it fit for a poor disbanded cavalier to use such a phrase towards a
commander of the conquering army,—upon, knowing whether the convulsion
which has sent us saints and prophets without end, has not also
afforded us a poet with enough both of gifts and grace to outshine poor
old Will, the oracle and idol of us blinded and carnal cavaliers.”
“Surely, sir,” replied Colonel Everard; “I know verses written by a
friend of the Commonwealth, and those, too, of a dramatic character,
which, weighed in an impartial scale, might equal even the poetry of
Shakspeare, and which are free from the fustian and indelicacy with
which that great bard was sometimes content to feed the coarse
appetites of his barbarous audience.”
“Indeed!” said the knight, keeping down his wrath with difficulty. “I
should like to be acquainted with this master-piece of poetry!—May we
ask the name of this distinguished person?”
“It must be Vicars, or Withers, at least,” said the feigned page.
“No, sir,” replied Everard, “nor Drummond of Hawthornden, nor Lord
Stirling neither. And yet the verses will vindicate what I say, if you
will make allowance for indifferent recitation, for I am better
accustomed to speak to a battalion than to those who love the muses.
The speaker is a lady benighted, who, having lost her way in a pathless
forest, at first expresses herself agitated by the supernatural fears
to which her situation gave rise.”
“A play, too, and written by a roundhead author!” said Sir Henry in
surprise.
“A dramatic production at least,” replied his nephew; and began to
recite simply, but with feeling, the lines now so well known, but which
had then obtained no celebrity, the fame of the author resting upon the
basis rather of his polemical and political publications, than on the
poetry doomed in after days to support the eternal structure of his
immortality.
‘These thoughts may startle, but will not, astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong-siding champion, Conscience.’”
“My own opinion, nephew Markham, my own opinion,” said Sir Henry, with
a burst of admiration; “better expressed, but just what I said when the
scoundrelly roundheads pretended to see ghosts at Woodstock—Go on, I
prithee.”